City Link redundancies: It was a happy new year for City banking bosses. With their bonuses, 121 members of Goldman Sachs were paid an average of £3 million each last year. It was not such a happy new year for everyone however

No to Academies!: Parents, teachers and school students in Lewisham are angry. Labour-run Lewisham council in south London plans to dismiss the governors and headteacher at Sedgehill school and impose an 'interim executive

The Socialist Party launched its general election appeal before Christmas. We are aiming to raise £50,000 over the next few weeks to help pay for the leaflets, posters and other essential material essential

Xekinima (CWI Greece) are participating in the elections and other struggles

At the end of last year a constitutional crisis arose in austerity-ridden Greece with the failure to elect a president. An early general election to be called for 25 January with Syriza (a left party) leading the polls. The Socialist spoke to Andros Payiatsos from Xekinima (CWI in Greece)

The ongoing crisis in the National Health Service (NHS) has become the latest general election battleground for the establishment parties - with Labour, Tories, Lib Dems and Ukip all pledging to make it work

Just three years into a ten year contract the private company Circle has pulled out of its contract to run Hinchingbrooke National Health Service (NHS) hospital in Cambridgeshire, writes Jackie Grunsell.

The shocking terrorist attacks in Paris, mainly at the journal Charlie Hebdo and in a Jewish supermarket, were met with mass revulsion and outrage. These atrocities were directed at ordinary working people and do nothing to counter oppression

In recent weeks Germany has seen growing demonstrations in favour and against Pegida (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West), writes Wolfram Klein, Socialist Alternative (SAV, CWI in Germany).

Don't let us be divided! Fight against racism!: This statement was written (on 8 January) by Gauche Revolutionnaire (the sister organisation of the Socialist Party in France) in response to the attack on Charlie Hebdo

In the presidential election held on 8 January in Sri Lanka the incumbent, Mahinda Rajapaksa, suffered a fatal blow. The opposition candidate, Maithripala Sirisena, won with 51.3% against Rajapaksa's 47.6%.

Tesco's first trading statement of 2015 brought further profits warnings, news of cuts and further attacks on workers, writes Scott Jones, Candidate for Usdaw executive South Wales and Western division.

The NHS is under increasing strain as the crisis in hospitals' Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments deepens. A&E waiting times have been the worst since records began. The number of trolley waits has more than trebled

Come to the TUSC conference, 24 January: The 7 May general election will be seen by many as an opportunity to ditch the Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition that has imposed the widest and deepest austerity for generations, writes Dave Nellist, TUSC national chair.

Essex firefighters took strike action from 9am on Wednesday 14 January. The three days of planned partial actions have been escalated as the employers effectively chose to temporarily lock firefighters

On 24 January, the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is meeting to discuss the 2015 elections. Clive Heemskerk, TUSC national election agent, puts the case for the biggest possible challenge in both the general election and local council contests on 7 May

In a small store such as ours, managers often end up working side by side with ordinary staff, all doing the same job. It's called "rumble", and can be a fun activity, joking and chatting, writes a Tesco worker.

80 billionaires own half the world: The charity Oxfam has produced a report showing that the richest 1% of people on this planet are on course to own more than 50% of the world's wealth by 2016 - a testament to the inherent greed and inequality of the capitalist system

The privately run Parklands House care home in Rochdale was so bad that according to the Manchester Evening News: "Residents were seen sitting in soiled clothing, medication was left lying around and some patients were not receiving the right prescriptions."

As the Tories threaten to increase Britain's draconian anti-trade union laws beyond the general election, thousands of trade union reps across the trade union movement are even now facing huge cuts in their facility time

A letter sent by Brent Kennedy from Carlisle TUSC to the local press, radio and TV in Carlisle following revelations of ex-Lib Dem peer Oakshott offering funding to 30 Labour Party parliamentary election candidates, including Carlisle Labour candidate Lee Sherriff

The annual World Economic Forum (WEF) was held in Davos, Switzerland, last week. A global elite of world leaders, intellectuals, philanthropists, entrepreneurs and representatives of big business gathered

On 11 January Barack Obama and David Cameron, together with 40 other world leaders, marched arm-in-arm through Paris after the Charlie Hebdo events proclaiming the values of free speech and other democratic rights, writes Simon Carter.

Widespread electoral disillusionment with the Tory, Labour and Lib Dem establishment parties has opened up a political vacuum. Claire Laker-Mansfield questions whether the Green Party provides the answer to the lack of working class political representation.